Tag Archives: leadership

We are learning more and more about leadership all the time. One of the biggest “Ahas!” new and experienced managers (and the people who work for them) have experienced over the past few years is the realization that being a strong manager doesn’t mean being forceful or domineering.

It’s just the opposite — strong managers are strong enough to lead through trust, whereas weak managers have to use the force of their job titles to make people listen to them.

When we talk about fear-based management, it’s the weak managers we are referring to! You can spot a weak manager at a hundred paces or more, because weak managers are the ones who raise their voices, make threats and generally keep their teammates off-balance and worried about pleasing the manager when our customers need them to be happily focused on their work.

Women have long been told that thinking and acting “like a man” in the workplace is the only way to get ahead and to be taken seriously. This mentality may have prevailed decades ago when women were just gaining a foothold in the professional world, but modern women have learned that career success is not about adjusting to the male-dominated status quo. It’s about changing that status quo by embracing what makes the female perspective unique, and overcoming the doubts that keep women from reaching their full potential.

This is especially true of young female professionals who are just beginning their careers and have aspirations of rising through the ranks in their industry. Women who want to lead may find themselves up against superiors who question their priorities or blame disagreements on them being too “emotional” or “aggressive.” Worse yet, these women may have trouble find the leadership opportunities they’re looking for in the first place.

When They Hit the Ceiling, These Execs Just Move to the Next Floor

Quadrophobia Bureau: We’ve heard of buildings where the elevators don’t list a 13th floor. Now there seems to be a jinx on the fourth floor, as well. At the corporate headquarters of Hunt-Wesson Foods in Fullerton, for example, the entire fourth floor mysteriously vanished over Memorial Day weekend.

Apparently, company bigwigs decided that changing the number of the floor–which houses all the executive suites–would stop employees from referring to management as “the fourth floor” (as in “You won’t believe what the fourth floor did today” or “Naturally, the layoffs don’t affect the fourth floor”).

So presto, they turned it into the fifth floor. The elevators now stop at 1, 2, 3 and . . . 5, all room numbers on the floor no longer begin with a “4” and corporate directories were reprinted to eliminate any trace of the number that dare not speak its name.

We wanted to ask Hunt-Wesson if it also plans to refer to the Fourth of July as July 5, but we were told that the company’s lone spokeswoman was on the road (perhaps in her new five-wheel-drive sport utility vehicle) and unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, employees have begun referring to management as “the fifth floor,” and the Beatles are now known as the Fab Five.

Lydia was a contractor of Hunt Wesson when this occurred. She and her friend ran to the renumbered building. ‘GTFO’, said Lydia’s friend as they read the numbers in the elevator: ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, 5′. – Ed

A great leader is always improving and learning. Here’s some top leadership advice for discovering blindspots in your abilities and transforming them into advantages.

It’s hard to address one’s own flaws, but as any great leader knows it’s a necessary step toward improvement. Why? Because most people have developed fixed ways of thinking over the course of their lives. These repeated, flawed patterns drive them into mental ruts and stagnate their progress.

Of course, that probably sounds like the last thing you’d want as a leader. It’s important to identify the blindspots in your conscious way of life that might be holding you back, and use them to unearth deeper opportunities for growth. Here are 3 ideas from Robert Bruce Shaw’s Leadership Blindspots for how to reach your blindspots, discover your weaknesses, and turn them into triumphs.

Politicians, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all types get burned out. The problem is that because they are on center stage, the little subtleties that indicate that they aren’t at the top of their game are missed. Agendas get stuck. Leaders who have been previously energetic, focused, and a bit ahead of everyone else can get behind, and inertia sets in.

Those around them begin to whisper, get nostalgic for what was, and hope that the leader can turn it around. The signs of leadership burnout aren’t as simple as noting when someone locks him- or herself away. Burned out leaders stay active, but there is a sense that they’ve lost their edge.

The problem of leadership burnout is that no one is going to tell you. You are the person in charge. You are the entrepreneur with the great ideas. You are the CEO with ultimate authority. No one is going to come into your office and tell you that you’re losing your edge. You’re going to have to monitor yourself to make sure that you are on top of your game. It is crucial that you learn the symptoms of burnout so you can make a change before it’s too late.

In the boardroom, announcing your degree in philosophy is a lot like admitting to a history of animal cruelty in a therapist’s office: a sure sign of madness.

For philosophy scholars, the incredulous questions start early: “How will you ever get a job?” your parents might have asked. “What can you even do with a philosophy degree?” At first glance, it might seem impractical to study the great thinkers – after all, it isn’t every day that one has the burning need to apply Heidegger’s theories or ponder Derrida. But there’s one important thing that a rigorous study of philosophy trains like nothing else can: leadership.